G20 here in Pittsburgh

[davidpizzica]

Pittsburgh will be the center of attraction for the G20 talks. I just hope it isn't the center for violence, too. The city has made all the preparations they can for this event. It's the biggest event for Pittsburgh.

[RICHARD]

Pittsburgh will be the center of attraction for the G20 talks. I just hope it isn't the center for violence, too. The city has made all the preparations they can for this event. It's the biggest event for Pittsburgh.

Let's hope the pinheads who 'protest' are well behaved......:rolleyes:

[smokey the elder]

Bigger than the Steelers' 6th Super Bowl and the Penguins' Stanley Cup wins?:p;)

[davidpizzica]

Not quite, but close!

[bobsmom]

today. Already people who work downtown and don't want to be bothered by any crazy potential protestors are taking off. Many businesses are closing. I ride the bus into town and it is usually full and standing. It was about a third full - both in and back.

[blue]

Since the USA's Big 3 are dominated by Democrats, Ild be suprised if we see the type of riots we have seen in the past.

[Edwina's Secretary]

Let's hope the pinheads who 'protest' are well behaved......:rolleyes:

Enquiring minds want to know..."pinheads who protest"....does that go for the Tea Party folks too? Are you calling protesters "pinheads"? Or only protesters with whom you disagree?:D:D:D

[Lady's Human]

Any protest group which starts with the intent to start riots is a bunch of pinheads.

I was just perusing some of their plans.......seminars on how to deal with chem attacks, an absolutist statement that they won't allow police into their "affinity space", now the G20 is a neo-LIBERAL organization instead of neo-con........:D

I'd post the links but the language is less than friendly.

Want to protest? No problem, but leave the idiots at home instead of begging them to come.

[RICHARD]

an absolutist statement that they won't allow police into their "affinity space", now the G20 is a neo-LIBERAL organization instead of neo-con........:D


Those are the wussies that grew up on playgrounds without dodgeball and tag.

Affinity space. LOL, if we run across the line we won't get beaten or tasered!!!

meh.

[Trinityagain]

Hubby and I both work in Oakland and the whole G-20 crew is coming thru here to go to Phipps Conservatory tomorrow for a dinner...so we did it the easy way and we both took tomorrow and Friday off. They are closing so many roads it is insane....I hope it stays peaceful....

[DJFyrewolf36]

Any protest group which starts with the intent to start riots is a bunch of pinheads.


I wholeheartedly agree. My stance on the current state of politics is this: We as a country have been groomed into thinking This or That, A or B, Liberal or Conservative and on and on for years. Now there are a couple generations of people who believe that comprimise means failure. Our system has painted itself into a corner because people are spending time arguing instead of coming to a consensus on how fix what is broken. The broken wheel will keep turning until it eventually fails, and then we'll be totally stuck on the side of the road with no one that knows how to change a tire but we'll have a ton of people who sure do know how to argue about changing a tire!

[bobsmom]

Saw my first couple of demonstrations today. Quite peaceful actually. I enjoyed the small group of hippies who were singing for a greener world. Police everywhere though. Police, police and more police - police walking, riding bikes on horses and many, many motorcycle groups. Lots of State Troopers. People were boarding up their storefronts today with flower painted plywood. All were flower painted (sort of 60's style) so must have been provided to them by the city. I am going to try and take some pics tomorrow. If none turn out, I'm sure my husband (Dan Yazvac) will get some good ones. He is a prof photographer and Pittsburgh's Best Retoucher!!! Here are some pics he took the other day.

[Cinder & Smoke]

Here are some pics he took the other day.

Photo 1:
What's an Incline Car ??

Like a trolly car or a San Francisco Cable Car . except the Incline has only two cars
operating on a track that is "inclined" about 45* and runs straight UP and DOWN the
side of Mount Washington. While one goes UP, the other car goes DOWN.
Don't worry - the floor is counter-inclined 45* too - the passengers ride
on level seats on a level floor. FHAN-TASTIC view of Pittsburgh!

Photo 2:
The Incline "Upper Station" where the winch cables are controlled by the Operator.

PS: The entire Incline System - down to two lines from a high of a dozen,
is a Card-Carrying "Antique" - but still hauls passengers up & down Mt Washington
EVERY Day! The "Inclines" are a Must Ride if you're ever in P-Burgh!

Phto 3:
"The Point" - aka Point State Park ... the juncture of our Three Rivers !

1 ~ the Allegheny River - flowing south towards the point is visible above
the Indian's nose.

2 ~ the Monongahela River - flowing west towards the point from the east / southeast,
is visible under the settler's chin.

Those two rivers flow together at "The Point" and become
3 ~ the Ohio River - which heads west under the Indian's chin.

When I was a lil kid growing up in the P-burg suburbs, standing near that statue's
location on Mt Washington - you'd be hard pressed to see the other side
of the Monongahela River because of the famous Pittsburgh SMOG! :eek:
And there was NO fountain at the Point!
Instead there was a horrible collection of old, run-down steel mill production
and processing buildings, railroad tracks, and steel products covering every
inch of what later became the "Golden Triangle" - a modern group of
skyscrapers, parks, and Interstate highways.

Pittsburgh has come a LOOOOOONG Way in my lifetime! :)

[blue]

Big difference from the 9/12 Tea Party.


Police threw canisters of pepper spray and smoke at marchers as US President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrived for a meeting with leaders of the world's major economies.....

Elsewhere in the city, there were reports of rocks being thrown at buses in the Bloomfield district, where the windows and ATM of one bank were damaged.....
_____________________________

In the city's Lawrenceville district, about a mile from the summit venue, police deployed tear gas in order to disperse crowds after warning everyone in the area to "leave the immediate vicinity regardless of your purpose." Protestors responded by throwing bottles at the officer.

Those gathered came from a variety of groups and causes, including Code Pink – which is a female-led anti-war group - Greenpeace, and some calling themselves the G20 Resistance Project.

Source (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/6229141/G20-Pittsburgh-police-fire-tear-gas-at-protestors.html).

[RICHARD]

Go police!
I saw some clips of the idiots running up the street with trash bins, sticks and masks on.

--------------

DJ,

You are so right.

We focus on the divisions rather than the answers.

Beat them all up, let the ER docs sort them out.:eek:;):(

[bobsmom]

Contrary to some of what you may have seen or heard on TV, the G2o Summit in Pittsburgh was quite uneventful!!! Lots, and lots of police and Secret Service - and lots of folks carrying cameras (some with 3-4 hanging over their neck with extra zoom lenses and what not), but very little to photograph.

The few demonstrations that took place and went awry were on the outskirts of town, surrounding neighborhoods like Oakland (Pitt and CMU Universities) and Bloomfield. I was truly disappointed as I would have like to have seen some "PEACEFUL" protesting - as the groups tend to be colorful and interesting and just fun to photograph. BUT no such luck. My husband works in the heart of town and he "got nothing".

Here are few of the police presence and one of our beautiful city (classic point shot) if you've never seen it and one of Phipps Conservatory (where dignitaries met to dine). If you would like to see more shots of Pittsburgh, you can find some on my husband's website, www.daygraphics.net. He's primarily a retoucher (Pittsburgh's Best Retoucher), but he does his fair share of photography.

P.S. Thank you Cinder for the exceptional, wonderful descriptions of previously posted pics.

[Medusa]

Being from the Pgh. area, a girlfriend and I would visit Phipps Conservatory, the Museum and the zoo every year. I miss those days. Pgh. has quite the skyline.

[phesina]

Pittsburgh has become absolutely beautiful. What a fantastic turnaround!

[davidpizzica]

I think Pittsburgh did a great job of showing it's best face to the world. I hope the city changed the minds of those who still think of Pittsburgh as a dirty, smoky city.

[blue]

First Ive heard of this, LRAD used on protesters.


Police use acoustic warfare to disperse crowds

By JOE MANDAK (AP) – 16 hours ago

PITTSBURGH — Police ordered protesters to disperse at the Group of 20 summit last week with a device that can beam earsplitting alarm tones and verbal instructions that the manufacturer likens to a "spotlight of sound," but that legal groups called potentially dangerous.

The device, called a Long Range Acoustic Device, concentrates voice commands and a car alarm-like sound in a 30- or 60-degree cone that can be heard nearly two miles away. It is about two feet square and mounted on a swivel such that one person can point it where it's needed. The volume measures 140-150 decibels three feet away — louder than a jet engine — but dissipates with distance.

Robert Putnam, spokesman for the manufacturer, San Diego-based American Technology Corp., said it's "like a big spotlight of sound that you can shine on people."

"It's not a sonic cannon. It's not the death ray or anything like that," Putnam said. "It's about long-range communications being heard intelligibly."

During the Pittsburgh protests, police used the device to order demonstrators to disperse and to play a high-pitched "deterrent tone" designed to drive people away. It was the first time the device was used in a riot-control situation on U.S. soil, according to American Technology and police.

Those who heard it said authorities' voice commands were clear and sounded as if they were coming from everywhere all at once. They described the "deterrent tone" as unbearable.

Joel Kupferman, who was at Thursday's march as a legal observer for the National Lawyer's Guild, said he was overwhelmed by the tone and called it "overkill."

"When people were moving and they still continued to use it, it was an excessive use of weaponry," Kupferman said.

Witold "Vic" Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Pennsylvania, said the device is a military weapon capable of producing permanent hearing loss, something he called "an invitation to an excessive-force lawsuit."

The operator of the device is usually behind it and not in the path of the focused beam of sound.

Catherine Palmer, director of audiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said 140 decibels can cause immediate hearing loss. But there's no way to know if anyone was exposed to sounds that loud without knowing how far away they were, she said.

Putnam and public safety officials said the complaints prove the device worked as designed.

"You have to put your hands over your ears and cover them, and it's difficult to throw stuff," said Ray DeMichiei, deputy director of the city's emergency management agency.

Police said they used the device last Thursday to issue prerecorded warnings to disperse when hundreds of demonstrators, including self-described anarchists, without a protest permit held a march that threatened to turn violent.

Aware of concerns about the volume, police were careful to use it about 12 feet off the ground mounted on a tactical vehicle, so no individual would be directly in its path or too close to it, Assistant Chief William Bochter said.

"The only way anybody gets hurt is if the deterrent is on full blast and they stand directly in front of it," Putnam said.

A regional counterterror task force bought four of the devices from American Technology using $101,000 in federal Homeland Security funds, DeMichiei said. Because the amplified message was prerecorded, police could be sure the protesters heard exactly the instructions police desired and have confidence those in the back of the crowd could hear, Bochter said.

Such devices also have military and commercial applications. Putnam said the primary purpose is to transmit specific orders loudly and clearly.

They have been used against protesters overseas, and police in New York threatened to use one during demonstrations near the Republican National Convention in 2004.

He said the city of San Diego uses them to instruct people to leave large sections of beach after festivals. It has also been used in SWAT operations.

In military applications, it allows ships to hail approaching vessels and determine their intent, the company says. Cargo ships use them to tell pirates that they had been spotted. When the pirates know they have lost the element of surprise, they will not attack, Putnam said.

Putnam said those complaining about the device have probably exposed themselves to sounds nearly as loud at rock concerts, and for longer periods of time. Walczak, the ACLU attorney, isn't buying the analogy.

"People don't flee the front row of a rock concert. Why would they be fleeing here?" Walczak asked. "Because it's loud, it's painfully loud."

Link (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jLsyPf2eFJdJ5Ov0mMNmiRn0feQgD9B28SAO0).